Editorials

The Irish Times view on the children’s hospital: patient safety must be priority

The target of opening by the end of the year now looks unlikely to be met

A view of the new Children’s Hospital. (Photo: Sam Boal/Collins Photos)
A view of the new Children’s Hospital. (Photo: Sam Boal/Collins Photos)
Thu Mar 26 2026 - 20:28 • 2 MIN READ

There was an inevitability about the announcement that the latest deadline for completion of the National Children’s Hospital will not be met. Seventeen previous deadlines have already come and gone.

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill’s current estimate – given in February – that the hospital would open before the end of the year now looks to be in danger. It was contingent on the contractor, Bam, handing over the hospital by the end of April, which is not going to happen. The commissioning of the hospital – ensuring that everything works as it should – and the transfer of staff from the three existing children’s hospitals is expected to take six to nine months.

The relationship between the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, which oversees the project, and Bam is increasingly fraught, with the chief officer of the board expressing his frustration at the Oireachtas Health Committee. He said the board had exercised “all rights and remedies” to compel Bam to meet the deadline.

The board’s impatience is understandable but must be tempered by the underlying reality that it is in nobody’s interest for the hospital to open before it is safe for it to do so. The risks inherent in rushing to open a large hospital have been underlined by the inquiry into the children’s hospital in Glasgow, now in its closing stages. Pressure on the Scottish National Health Service to open the hospital early in 2015 has been linked to numerous cases of infection and the death of seven patients.

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There is a danger that this important point will get lost in the ongoing political point scoring over the latest missed deadline. Sinn Féin has been quick to call for the Minister to apply more pressure on the development board.

It is the Minister’s duty to ensure Bam is held to the terms of its contract and pays any penalties that are due when the project is eventually completed. But she would be well advised to listen to Children’s Health Ireland, which has said that patient safety must be the primary determinant of the date of opening.